But the little room at the back where the tables were laid with fresh cloths and real flowers was welcoming. She sank down on a straight-backed chair while Coffin went to order the tea.
‘Can we not talk?’ she said when he came back. ‘Or simply be quiet?’
‘Two Indians, milk and some lemon for you, is that all right? Silence? Why not? Although the woman who took the order seemed to want to talk; she knows you, I think. Saw you in the theatre, I suppose.’
The tea, when it arrived, with a plate of shortbread biscuits, was served in blue-and-white china; it was strong and hot. Stella drank thirstily.
She noticed that Coffin, never as fond of tea as she was, drank slowly. Too many cups of canteen tea as a young copper climbing the ladder … and occasionally falling off, he had added with a wry smile; he could always laugh at himself.
The wall behind Coffin was covered with a large looking-glass in which she could see herself. She could also see the woman who ran the shop. She was a large, plump redhead with a friendly face but sharp eyes. Those eyes were now looking at Stella.
Stella realized that the woman was trying to catch her eye. She looked down at her tea to avoid the contact. How hard it was not to look up and see.
She sipped some tea. Come on, woman, she told herself. If this is a game, you can play it too. You make the rules, too. Damn it, you’re an actress.
She lifted her head to give the woman a radiant smile. She saw Coffin looking at her.
‘Never discourage a fan,’ she said, still with a smile.
‘ “No talking” is over, is it?’
‘Yes,’ Stella stood up. ‘Just give me a minute while I go to the cloakroom.’ She passed through the shop, had a quick word, still smiling, with the woman behind the desk, and disappeared. She was not gone long.
Coffin was waiting for her outside when she came through the shop.
‘Are you sure you’re up to this? You want to go on?’ he asked her gravely.
She nodded, walking forward. ‘Come on, it’s this way, I think.’ She turned to look him straight in the face: ‘As I remember.’
There was a cul-de-sac off China Street called Fish Alley. An unpromising name for a group of pretty apartments overlooking the river.
At the entrance to Fish Alley, Stella halted. ‘Down here, I think.’
‘Sure?’
She nodded towards a dark shop on the corner. ‘That shop is a coffin-maker’s … not many of them left now, most coffins are mass-produced. I couldn’t forget that shop, could I?’
Coffin considered that it was the first time he had ever considered his name – a good Kentish name – an embarrassment.
There was an aged, worn inscription on the glass which read: COFFIN MAKER TO HIS MAJESTY KING GEORGE III.
‘Can that be true?’
‘Shouldn’t think so,’ said Stella, ‘but it’s very imaginative. They are imaginative round here.’
A wizened little old man’s face peered at them through the dusty glass. He smiled and waved.
‘George III,’ said Coffin, waving back. Or does he think I am?’
‘I don’t think he’s sure.’ Stella could see the old man’s intent, cheerful, battered, old face. ‘He seems to know you.’
‘Very likely he does, my face gets known for what I am. Let’s admit it: we are both well known in our different ways. Hard to hide.’
Stella nodded. ‘I know where I am now. I remember.’ She pointed. ‘On the right. That small block. It’s the middle flat. I remember running down one flight of stairs.’
‘I am pleased. It’s very helpful to know where you were held and where Pip Eton was living.’ Coffin sounded positive, as if he had got what he wanted. He smiled at his wife encouragingly. ‘Clever Stella, I knew you would come through for me. We must let Archie Young and Inspector Lodge know.’
So we must, thought Stella dismally, all of them must know and come tramping around. She felt suddenly weary, as if she was being walked over herself. ‘Is that it? Can we leave it there? Walk back. Or ring for a cab, I am a bit tired.’
Coffin would have none of it. ‘No, Stella. Now we have got this far, we must look over the place, check it out. Not touch things – forensics will want to do that – but verify it really is where you were held.’
Fish Alley, near to Petty Pier, was quiet with a few cars parked along the kerbs; a woman was pushing a pram along the road, and a mongrel dog, tail up, trotted cheerfully behind her.
‘Lead the way, will you, Stella?’
She hesitated, then walked forward slowly. It was coming, it had to be, she saw that the truth was arriving.
‘It’s called Linton House, I see.’ Coffin was following her. ‘A grand name for a modest establishment.’ He was studying the numbers listed on the wall in the entrance lobby. ‘Must be number 2A. No name given. Understandable, I suppose. Incognito is the name of the game.’
For the first time, Stella understood that he was as nervous as she was. ‘A flight up,’ she said.
As they mounted the stairs, a woman put her head out of a ground-floor flat. ‘Thought I heard voices. Nice to see you, Miss Pinero.’
Stella smiled and nodded. ‘Mrs Flowers, here I am.’
‘I heard you here yesterday.’
‘No,’ Stella shook her head. ‘No, not yesterday.’
‘Oh.’ Mrs Flowers sounded surprised. ‘Thought I heard someone up there above.’ She started to withdraw backwards through the door. ‘Oh, well, you know how it is. It’s an old house, the floorboards creak all the time.’ She gave a jovial laugh, a wave of the hand, and closed the door.
‘Old gossip,’ said Stella. ‘Used to watch what went on.’
‘She sounds useful.’
‘Oh, yes, send your police questioners in. Make her day.’
They had arrived outside the door of 2A. Coffin surveyed the neat grey door with its shining brass bell. ‘I suppose we shall have to break in. No problem, I’ve done it often enough in the way of duty. I remember once I had to break into a house where there were five people dead around a dinner table.’
‘It won’t be necessary to break in,’ said Stella, lips stiff and her throat tight. ‘I have a key.’
‘You took it with you when you left? Cool of you, Stella.’
She did not answer, but put the key in the lock, turned it twice, then pushed the door open.
Beyond the door was a small hall, carpeted in soft grey, the walls painted white. Light streamed in through the open doors of the sitting room on the right and a bedroom on the left.
‘Smells empty,’ said Coffin. ‘No one dead here, anyway. You can always tell by the smell.’ He closed the front door behind him, then stood looking at Stella.
‘Honesty time,’ he said. ‘You knew this place before. If you were taken here, it was not by chance.’
Stella did not answer. She put her hand to her throat. She looked into her husband’s eyes and saw something there that she did not wish to see. In their long and difficult relationship, sometimes on, sometimes off, he had shown her anger, but behind it she had always seen love. Now she saw a kind of opacity. For the first time, she could not read him.
‘Honesty time,’ she repeated. ‘That’s a good line.’
‘Stop acting, Stella.’
‘Sorry, can’t help it. You’re frightening me.’
‘Even that is acting.’
And he was right.
Stella shook herself as if she were trying to throw out one persona, the actress, and get back into another, her own proper self. She led the way into the sitting room. ‘Let’s go and sit down.’
The sitting room was a long narrow room with windows at both ends, it was a room which looked as though it was basically tidy and in good order, but over which disorder had marched. A cup and saucer on the floor, an overturned chair, empty beer cans all around.
Stella righted the chair before sinking down on the chintz-covered sofa.
The action was, as she saw herself, a de
ad giveaway, if one were needed.
‘You own this place, don’t you, Stella?’
‘Yes.’
‘I would have known anyway. It smells of you, Stella. You didn’t know that, did you? How could you? But I can tell.’
‘I hope it’s a nice smell,’ she said, playing for lightness.
‘Now I want to know all about it – and the truth, mind.’
‘I don’t know where to start.’
‘Not at the beginning, not why you own this place or since when or what you do with it – that can come later.’ He saw her wince. ‘Tell me exactly what happened that day you packed your bags and announced you were going to several places where you never went and probably never intended to go.’
That is how he talks to a suspect, Stella thought. But then, I am a suspect. ‘I did intend to go to the health farm. But Pip Eton was waiting outside. He grabbed me and made me drive to here.’
‘And why here?’
Stella licked her lips. ‘I didn’t know it, but he was living here; had been for a few days, I think, maybe longer.’
‘And how did he get in?’
‘He had a key … I had given him one, years ago.’
Coffin nodded. ‘So, years ago, you gave a key to Pip Eton – I won’t ask why – and he kept it. Right? And, without you knowing it, he let himself in and began living here. Is that right?’
‘Yes, but I don’t think “living” is the way to describe it … He was just here. Using the place.’
‘For what?’ And, when she did not answer: ‘I must know, Stella.’
Reluctantly, she said: ‘I think he must have used it as a kind of base, a meeting place for people like himself …’
‘Terrorists.’
She bowed her head. ‘I didn’t know. I only learnt what he was, what he had become, when he entrapped me, trying to make me turn informer on you. I refused then and I always would have refused.’
Coffin nodded without saying anything.
‘But you have a secret life of your own which you did not tell me of. I didn’t know that you had a part on a hush-hush committee which he called ATA1. He told me that, not you.’
‘Secret information. It’s just work, Stella, part of my job.’
‘I would never have let him use me. He had been trying for ages, much longer than I let you know. I just laughed him off at first, I didn’t think you knew anything secret. I was wrong about that, you had your own secret life. In the end, he tried force, he attacked me. I just defended myself.’
‘I believe you. But you owned this place, you knew where you had been taken, even if by force, and you knew Pip Eton – rather well, I suspect, Stella.’
‘In the past,’ she said quickly. ‘All in the past.’
‘Lodge isn’t going to like it. I can’t say I do myself, but I’m glad you have told me everything.’
He walked to the window and looked out. A quiet street scene. ‘You didn’t keep much of a watch on this place.’
In a much louder voice, Stella said: ‘Since my marriage to you it has played no part in my life. I have lent it to various friends, not many, and that was all. It was an investment now, a place I might sell when it suited me.’
‘It wasn’t that all the time.’
‘No. Performers have their own stresses, a quiet place, where I could take … yes, a lover, helped me to unwind. But not since you and I met again, never.’
‘You never took me there.’
‘No. Can’t you see why? You were serious.’
Coffin smiled. ‘All this took some getting out of you.’
There was a pause.
‘You knew … you knew all the time, everything.’
‘I admit it. That secret side of my life informed me as a matter of course. You can imagine how I enjoyed it. Naturally it was done in a very tactful way; they didn’t come out and say, “Your wife is in contact with a very bad character indeed, a chap on our wanted list”, but I got the message. I wanted you to tell me. I needed you to tell me yourself.’
She covered her face with her hands. ‘I feel terrible.’
He came back from the window where he had been standing to sit beside her on the sofa. ‘I’ve had my own ups and downs, you know: nearly chucked out of the Force once. I was in limbo for a bit, and then on a kind of approval.’
‘Will you have to resign now?’
He didn’t answer, but stood up. ‘Let’s have a look over the flat. Forensics will have to come and check it out.’
‘There’s only the bedroom and the kitchen, besides the bathroom,’ Stella explained.
‘Kitchen first.’
The kitchen was small, with a compact white refrigerator and shining sink. The whole room looked unused. Coffin swung open the refrigerator door and a waft of cold air came out, but except for a carton of stale milk, it was empty. There were crumbs of bread and a wrapped loaf by the side of the electric cooker and two teabags in the sink in company with a dirty mug.
He looked in the rubbish bin which held a few beer cans and a bottle that had contained whisky.
‘Someone was here, but not doing much eating,’ he said. ‘Let’s see the bathroom.’
A quick look showed a bloodstained towel slung over the handbasin. Coffin looked but did not touch.
‘Bedroom now.’
This room was dominated by a large double bed. It was tidy, but when he pulled back the duvet the undersheet was tousled, as if someone had been sleeping there.
‘Your lodger,’ said Coffin.
The dressing table was tidy and unused except for a comb with hairs in it.
‘Careless fellow,’ said Coffin. ‘You should always take your hair with you.’
A cupboard covered both walls, but it was empty except for a tweed jacket.
‘Not mine,’ said Stella.
‘Belonged to the chap who left his hair and probably his blood behind. Forensics will tell us.’
‘Pip,’ Stella was clear. ‘The blood isn’t mine, I didn’t touch a towel. The towel belongs to the flat, though.’
‘Good,’ said Coffin lightly. ‘Something established.’
Stella sat down on the bed. ‘Wait a minute, I’ve been thinking, I was a fool not to see it. You didn’t need me to lead you to this flat, you knew. You knew that as well as the rest. You probably had a key.’
‘No key and I didn’t know which flat, just the general neighbourhood, but I did know you had something here … Lodge doesn’t know, nor Archie Young.’
‘That’s a comfort,’ said Stella bitterly. ‘But then they are not privileged with your confidential, special information. I mean, they are not in your game, are they?’
Coffin had bent down to look under the bed, his foot had caught on something. He drew out a carrier bag.
‘What’s this?’ He drew out a crumpled cotton shirt stained with blood, pale blue jeans, and a jacket, also bloody. There was a bright cotton skirt and toning blouse as well.
Stella looked. ‘Those are mine, I recognize them. How did they get here?’
‘How indeed?’
‘I gave them to Maisie to give to the charity shop she works in.’
‘Then we shall have to have a word with Maisie, shan’t we?’ said Coffin, his voice grim. Somehow he did not make it a question in which she could share. ‘Do you trust her?’
‘Yes, and yes.’ Stella sounded bewildered. ‘She’s been my dresser on and off for years. We’re friends.’ She paused. ‘More important, do you trust me?’
‘Always and for ever,’ said Coffin. He held his arms out. ‘And you have to trust me. We may have a bad time, both of us, but we will get over it. No promises, but I think so.’
Stella lifted her head. ‘Kiss me.’ She sank slowly backwards under the pressure of that kiss on to the bed.
‘I can think of better beds,’ he said. ‘What’s happening here?’
‘Always a tendency to fall in love with your leading man – in films more than in plays; the script demands it,’ sh
e said nervously.
‘Are we playing lovers because the script demands it?’
‘No. You know that.’
He raised himself. ‘Then let’s go home, we have a better bed there.’ Besides, forensics would be all over this one. Even in a moment of love he remained the policeman. ‘You will have to take those clothes off, in case they have traces, and I am afraid they will want to go over all your stuff, things you might have worn or brought here.’
‘I don’t like that.’
‘It will happen. Mine today as well, I expect. Nothing can be overlooked.’
Stella realized once again, this time with an even sharper pain, what she had done to him. ‘We are both in it, aren’t we? I have dragged you in … I’ll do anything you want.’
‘Just co-operate. And don’t try to be clever. Remember, they’re clever too.’ He added: ‘I’ll ring for a car to collect us.’
‘No, let’s walk. I would rather.’
‘Not too tired?’
‘No.’
Coffin hesitated, then said: ‘There is something for me to say. I owe it to you to tell you something of what I’ve been involved with these last months.’
Stella looked at him without speaking.
‘I was a member of a committee vetting security. Top-level stuff. Spying on friends and colleagues. Treat it as a game, I was told.’
‘And who were you watching?’
‘I can’t name names even to you.’ Especially to you, because you were one of them. I was to watch Inspector Lodge and Sir Fred, who was no doubt watching me, Pip Eton – yes, his name came forward because of you, I knew about him, Stella. Also one person who managed to stay in the undergrowth and is a murderer.
‘Not a nice game.’
‘No, well, that’s it? Still want to walk by my side?’ Stella nodded. ‘Thank you.’
As they emerged into the street, Stella said: ‘I’ve remembered something … There was someone else here besides Pip. I heard another voice … There was a woman.’
What a lot was packed into that period when you were drugged, Coffin thought sadly.
Chapter 11
Nothing in Coffin’s life ever went as planned, a process he had long learnt to expect but was often surprised by all the same.
Coffin's Game Page 14
